The an­nual Mon­dello Park Fi­esta 6 Hour En­durance race at­tracted some high pro­file names to take on the reg­u­lar class pace­set­ters last week­end, with ex-f1 driv­ers Tommy Byrne and David Kennedy com­pet­ing.

The pair teamed up with Kevin Mc­gar­rity and Niall Mcfad­den in a Mur­ray Mo­tor­sport car, with their main op­po­si­tion ex­pected to come from team-mates Michael Cullen, Dave Maguire, John Den­ning and Rod Mcgovern – all for­mer saloon car cham­pi­ons.

At the end of qual­i­fy­ing though, it was the lo­cal MTR team of Lloyd Mur­phy/damien Mur­phy and for­mer team owner Bren­dan Travers who claimed pole po­si­tion. Un­for­tu­nately for them though, they were late leav­ing their garage and the pit­lane had closed, mean­ing they, among oth­ers, would have to start the race from the pit­lane.

In the clos­ing stages, the Barrable team of fa­ther Michael and sons Peter and Robert were in the lead with the Mur­ray team of Cullen/maguire/ Den­ning/mcgovern on the same lap, and clos­ing.

At the fi­nal stop, with the rain fall­ing, Robert Barrable took the wheel and Mur­ray Mo­tor­sport re­sponded by putting Cullen in their car, and fit­ting a new left front tyre too.

Cullen im­me­di­ately be­gan to slash the gap but Barrable re­sponded and when Cullen tan­gled with a back­marker, the safety car was dis­patched, fol­lowed by the che­quered flag a few laps later.

A great come­back meant the MTR equipe took sec­ond, just from the SPCF team of Alan Auer­bach, Mark Meenaghan, Mark O’donoghue and Shane Mur­phy, who were in con­tention through­out.

Byrne/kennedy/ Mc­gar­rity/mcfad­den fin­ished sixth in their Team Bris­tol Mal­lory car.

Team Barrable took vic­tory in the Fi­esta 6 Hours af­ter late safety car